Thursday, November 15, 2012

Richard Perry and Jane Fonda Do It Up Modern

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama gets loads of emails and phone calls from all-kinda folks who want know who bought what, where and for how much. Over the last few months we've received an unexpected and unusual number of queries about the real estate activities of later-in-life lovebirds Richard Perry and Jane Fonda.

Mister Perry is an accomplished music producer of the highest magnitude with more than a dozen gold records and a slew of A-grade credits with superstars like Rod Stewart, Carly Simon, Diana Ross, the divine Martha Reeves, Babs herself, Percy Faith, the Pointer Sisters, Leo Sayer, Donna Summer, Neil Diamond and Andy Williams, to name just a handful or two. Miz Fonda is, natch, the Jane Fonda, the snappy, smart and sassy two-time Oscar winning actress/activist/aerobics instructor once, best and still known in many circles as the campy but preposterously sexy Barbarella and/or the political lightening rod Hanoi Jane.

The queries began almost immediately after our June 2012 (dis and) discussion of the celebrity pedigreed Sunset Strip home Mister Perry then owned, unofficially but openly shared with Miz Fonda and had up for sale for nearly $13 million. Finally for the curious, there's an answer via the long-legged gal at Trulia Luxe Living. Mister Perry and Miz Fonda have decamped the lower Sunset Strip for the stylishly au courant Trousdale Estates 'hood at the very eastern edge of Beverly Hills (CA). Property records show the gated and completely renovated residence was actually acquired by Mister Perry at the tail end of June 2012 for $7,300,000.*

Listing information still available on the internets shows the original residence was built in 1961, had not been on the market in 44 years and had been the long-time home of a "legendary TV & film director." That Tinseltown legend turns out to have been recently deceased and wildly prolific three-time Emmy winner John Rich. Although Mister Rich worked regularly well into the late 1990 he started out way back in the middle 50s (I Married Joan, Where's Raymond). His Showbiz Salad Days were, arguably, the early 1960s to the early 1980s when he directed and/or produced numerous episodes of a long list of iconic sitcoms and westerns that include The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, the Brady Bunch, That Girl, All in the Family and Benson.

Anyhoo, listing information goes on to indicate the spacious and re-conceived mid-century modern has four bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms in 7,513 square feet.

The jagged, angular exterior opens to an airy, multi-level interior with long expanses of crisp white walls, vaulted and beamed ceilings, glass-railed staircases and long ribbons of windows and sliding doors. In addition to some of the more (melo)dramatic flourishes such as an
all-glass elevator, the house is chock full of fancy-pants eco-friendly
features such as bamboo floors, photovoltaic solar panels, three
ventless bio-ethanol fueled fireplaces and double-glazed thermal windows
with motorized shades.

The foyer flows into a reception lounge large enough to accommodate a baby grand piano. A short but wide set of steps descends into the formal living room proper that's anchored by a sturdy stacked stone fireplace and visually open to the outdoors through a towering wall of windows that extend from the knees to the ceiling.

The open-concept dining room and kitchen has a second (bio fuel) fireplace exotically set into a wall of glass that allows the fire to be seen and enjoyed both inside and outside. It's an undeniably extraordinary and architecturally arresting visual feature, a real-live, more is more WOW! moment. Howevuh, not that it matters a lick and just between us chickens here, Your Mama thinks that fireplace conceit is a bit too too, you know? Especially in a residence that already has a glass-walled elevator.

Anyhoo, the expensively equipped kitchen and adjoining butler's pantry orbits around a massive center island with lowered snack counter. The streamlined but still organic-minded kitchen has all the expected upscale finishes and swank accoutrement that includes what may or may not be walnut cabinetry, mossy green quartz counter tops, top-quality commercial style appliances and a flat screen t.v. that lifts up out of the counter top at the touch of a button.**

The master suite includes a walled sunken sitting room with another one of those (bio fuel) fireplaces set into a wall of glass—once really is enough when it comes to a showstopper like this—and a pair of large bathrooms with steam showers, soaking tubs and radiant heated floors. There's also at least one to-die-for-sized walk-in closet with icky tan wall-to-wall carpeting, walls lined with miles of hanging racks and a nipple-high built-in dresser stuck smack in the center of the room.

A separate lower-level media/game room, accessible via a glass-railed stairway or that painstakingly engineered glass-elevator, has cork floors and plenty of space for a pool table, television/movie viewing lounge, and a booze-hound's dream bar with sink, dishwasher, ice maker and under-counter wine fridge.

Multiple outdoor living areas include a couple of dining decks directly off the kitchen that overlook the swimming pool, a serene side terrace with stone fountain and a lounging nook set high enough in a concrete wall as to be difficult to climb into without a stepping stool and a flat grassy pad with outdoor fireplace and views that extend down the canyons and across the city.

A deep overhang shades the lower level rooms and runs around two sides of the dark bottomed rectangular swimming pool. Sunbathing terraces run along either side of the pool, away from the house to a slightly raised deck that pushes out over the canyon.

Back in late June (2012), right about the time Mister Perry closed on his and Miz Fonda's new love nest in Trousdale Estates, Your Mama discussed the much more traditional mini-mansion in the lower Sunset Strip area that Mister Perry owned and and had on the open market with an idealistic but ultimately unrealistic $12,750,000 price tag. The asking price for the 5 bedroom and 8 bathroom knoll-top house, originally built for Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman, eventually plunged to $10,000,000 before a somewhat mysterious corporate entity came along and purchased the property for $8,500,000.

Miz Fonda, who may or may not still maintain a one bedroom and 1.5 bathroom rental apartment at the star-studded Sierra Towers building, also long-maintained a 4,764 square foot multi-unit combination penthouse in Atlanta, GA that she unsuccessfully first attempted to sell for $4,500,000 in May 2010. By June 2012 the asking price had crashed to just $1,195,000. As far as we can tell, the penthouse has yet to sell but does not appear to currently be listed for sale on the open market.*Miz Fonda's name does not appear on any of the property records
documents we peeped but that does not mean she does not have some sort of stake in
the place.

**It could be a press of a button that causes the t.v. to rise up out
of the counter top but it could also be a flip of the switch or the
swipe of a hand-held touch screen or some other action our caffeine
starved brain can't even conceive right now.

27 comments:

Friends in the ATL tell me that Fonda's condo there has been steadily leased by various entertainment types passing through for film & television gigs. The last couple of visits she's made to Atlanta herself, Fonda has stayed in hotels. Even at $1.2-mill, the condo is a challenge to market. She put WAY too much $$ into combining multiple units and customizing the space -- way out of proportion to comps in the building and neighborhood. It would be a tough sell in the best of "seller" markets, and right now Atlanta is overflowing with short sales, even in the $1-mill plus range. I wish her well with it, but it could (still) take a while, and maybe additional painful price chops.

This house is a hot mess! It looks real small from the outside. I am shocked this is supposed to be over 7,500 square feet. Also I am shocked that this house costs over $7 million. It looks like $3 million at best. I guess Jane Fonda is very frugal with her money because I'd think that as rich as she is that she'd live larger than this. I saw an apartment she had in Atlanta area and it looked cheap too. And I think she lived in a cheap apartment in Sierra Tower in Los Angeles as well. You'd think she'd live in a big grand estate with park like grounds, gardens, pool, and tennis court and the works. Like something in the estate section of Bel Air or something in Beverly Park or something.

Certainly not one gay person was involved in this house renovation. And who cares about her Atlanta place? One can only hope that with her years of selling exercise video tapes, and being the ex Mrs. Turner, that she can absorb a big loss. And if she cant then perhaps Karma came to visit dear Jane.

I toured the home in an open house back in April. Very nice home but the homes around are modest and as another poster stated it does appears small from the outside. Also, not the tight security compound that one would expect for a celebrity of this level. The nicest feature was the walk in closet between the hallway and the master bedroom. Huge and the wood was magnificent.

To whoever said Sierra Towers is not cheap I guess you are very uneducated. The fact that you just said "Lindsay Lohan" lived there proves my point exactly. I doubt the Sultan of Brunei or whatever would even live in a place that Lindsay Lohan lives in. From what I remember Jane Fonda was leasing like a $2 million dollar apartment or something. That's not what someone on her level does. You'd never see Oprah leasing a $2 million apart. Oprah would buy a $50 million dollar house in cash. People that rent $2 million apartments are usually D list like Lindsay. I know there are some big name stars that live in Sierra Towers but that is just cause somebody sold some dumb celebs on the belief that it is cool to live in that building or whatever. That does not change the fact that the place is cheap. I have seen the interiors of that place and its cheap. You can't compare Sierra Towers to Le Belvedere or La Belle Vie or something on that level. That's how i'd think Ms. Fonda would be living with all her informercial and Ted Turner divorce settlement money.

Gotta love the way that stupid Jeep rolls up the driveway in the first photo...

;-)

Fonda discussed her Sierra Towers apartment on Miss Kathy's show; although she said she's owned it for a while, she claims never to have lived there, but that Perry's house was visible from her terrace.

As for this house, it seems to me to be a case of "every pot has its lid"; not to everyone's taste, but not bloody awful, either -- do love the fireplace.

In a high-density 'hood at a bend in the road, an aerial view shows a large home with only one too-close-neighbor -- an eroding slope abuts the property on the other side.

Does it occur to any of those that feel Ms Fonda should be living in larger more regal surroundings that she maybe likes the size and setting of this home.? And she doesn't feel it's required to meet anyone's expectations but her and their own.?Approx 8000 sq ft is still a large residence. Living beyond anyones means ..though it is the American way doesn't mean it's all Americans choice.!!